Zhu Jinshi
Wind in the Western Mountains
One Art Museum, Beijing, China
One Art Museum is pleased to announce Wind in the Western Mountains, a large-scale solo exhibition by Zhu Jinshi. The exhibition will present more than 40 paintings and installations spanning nearly three decades from the 2000s, and will occupy four halls organized by works from the 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, and installations. Through a continuous, systematic, and chronological survey, the exhibition aims to make space for the display and discussion of Zhu’s practice.
This exhibition will focus on Zhu’s artistic output from 2004 to 2024, including his iconic “thick paintings” and most recent, monumental xuan paper installations. Whether they take form through the accumulation, entanglement, cutting, excavation, or slippage of paint, or the stacking of crisp and soft xuan paper into towers, Zhu's works are pre-designed but remain at the behest of chance. This frank presentation of material and gesture collapses the boundary between installation and painting, lending the work greater possibilities beyond conventional image.
As one of the earliest artists in China to work with abstraction and installation art, Zhu’s keen insight has kept him at the forefront of the times. He is anti-painting, anti-concept, and even anti-style, time and time again asking prudent and sharp questions to challenge himself. Zhu believes in specific processes and allows for time. His art is like a shifting prism, refracting and reflecting as the subject of action while permeating and exuding the planar yet spacious depths of social reality.
Within the social context of cultural studies, art museums are one of the core agents in the artistic process and important sites for discourse. As a contemporary art space located in the high-tech center of west Beijing, One Art Museum has both a determined and tranquil temperament, striving to exhibit unique case studies of art, Chinese contemporary art and its achievements, and provide a space for dialogue and conversation amidst complexity, as well as a regional testing ground for global contemporary art.
This year, Zhu will also show his work at the Chinese Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. It is significant that the work in Venice and the xuan paper installation at One Art Museum are from the same series: they appear together as a quantum entanglement, both as twin creatures on different sides of the world, and as journeys between regional cultures resonating in tandem.
One Art Museum is deeply honored to organize Zhu's solo exhibition, presenting to the audience his outstanding works of art while diving deeper into the context of contemporary Asian art. Overlooking the world from the west mountain, we jointly participate in the writing of the 21st century art history.